Electric car owner cruises past pricey gas pumps Worcester Telegram …

PHILLIPSTON It’s been two years since Bob Hurst evicted squirrels living in his Citroen electric car, cut down a large tree growing through the trunk and repaired the odd-looking vehicle enough to get it running for a Phillipston Historical Society event.

The car was patched up then as much as was needed to get it running for the event, but now the pile of rust and rot is one final coat of paint away from looking and running better than when he and his son Jim built it in 1973.

The car, a 1957 Citroen 2CV with a roll-up cloth roof, was turned into an electric car in 1973 by Mr. Hurst and his then 11-year-old son. It was an amazing accomplishment then, considering how little was being done with electric cars at the time. Mr.

Hurst, now 73, had no blueprints to work with when he converted the old French car, just ideas running around in his head. He put it together from junkyard parts, using his self-taught engineering skills. It was built during the 1970s Arab oil embargo that squeezed the supply of oil so much that gasoline prices rose dramatically and gas had to be rationed.

He then ran it back and forth to work and around town from 1973 to 1976.

After the gas crisis abated, Mr. Hurst parked his clever creation out behind his house. He went back to driving more traditional vehicles for about 30 years, until Carole Gariepy of the Phillipston Historical Society convinced him to give a talk on his car-of-the-future built so many years in the past.

Again enlisting his son’s help, they brought the long-neglected car back to life, even replacing a rusted frame.

After the talk, Mr. Hurst did not put the car back out to pasture, but kept tinkering with it as time would allow, continuing to work with his son, who now earns his living in electronics and computers. Even two years ago it seemed like a novelty to outsiders, but now, like in the 1970s, it is a practical and timely machine.

Gas reached more than $4 a gallon this year, before the price retreated some recently.

“I’m saving $50 a week on gas,” he said.

The car is fuel-efficient, non-polluting — a completely green vehicle and everything car companies should be dreaming of. Mr. Hurst said the fact that electric cars are not yet a common sight, 35 years after he designed and converted his Citroen, is puzzling to him.

“They should have been way down the road on these by now,” he said.

Mr. Hurst said his car not only saves him money — the original conversion only cost him $300 — but he enjoys driving it. It makes a slight whirring sound going down the road, enough to catch people’s attention. It can reach up to 55 mph, plenty fast enough for Mr.

Hurst, and he loves that he spends only the cost of electricity to fill it up.

“It’s a fun thing,” he said. “I love to drive it. I thumb my nose at the gas pumps as I go by.”

The car does not have a lot of range between electrical fill-ups, but he can drive it from his home on Ward Hill Road to Athol and back without any problem.

“I could probably go to Gardner and back,” he said.

The question of how far the car will go is complex. Mr. Hurst explained that he has the vehicle set up so that traveling downhill or using the brakes charges the motor. If there are a lot of downhills on the route, the car gets more mileage.

He actually overcharges driving to Athol, but the return trip is almost entirely uphill.

Some of the improvements to the car include changes that boosted the capacity of the car from 36 to 48 volts, and a new controller that improves efficiency, but requires that the old controller remain in the vehicle. The new part does not allow the system to generate power going down hills.

One of the more interesting changes from two years ago was added by Jim Hurst. There is a universal serial bus computer cable attached to the car. The younger Mr.

Hurst said it allows him to plug into the car and collect real time data when it is driving down the road. The data can be added to spreadsheets and allow them to see how well the car is running.

The car is such a clever creation, Bob Hurst would be excused if he bragged a little, but he doesn’t.

When asked how he came up with the design of the car, he simply says, “I kind of winged it.”

By winging it, he means he machined parts, transplanted diodes from an X-ray machine and generally created designs that engineers from General Motors would admire.

Mr. Hurst is not an engineer. He has simply been a very clever and skilled mechanic for 54 years, working for many years for car repair businesses and dealerships in the area. His out-of-the-box thinking was apparent when he was a young man working for Motors of Gardner, a Chrysler dealership.

A customer came in several times complaining that her new car kept making a fluttering sound. The problem baffled even company experts, until Bob discovered a fender that was not braced enough and was making the sound as the car accelerated. He received a letter of commendation from the car company.

Equally commendable is the fleet of cobbled-together creations he has at his house and at a garage at another family’s property on Royalston Road. He had a bucket-loader that had a blown engine, so instead of finding a duplicate to replace it, he rebuilt the vehicle to accommodate a Volkswagen engine. That seems to be a common theme with many of his vehicles.

The engines were bad, so rather than take the easy way out, he re-engineered the vehicles so different engines would fit.

When the Citroen is painted, Bob hopes to register it if he can find all the paperwork needed to satisfy the state Registry of Motor Vehicles. In the meantime, he doesn’t expect to ever declare the project finished. There are always new and better parts.

He’d like to find a way to increase the miles he can drive on each charge.

“Everything needs to be tailored over and over,” he said, as a smile spread over his face.